


Welcome (to our Family)

by Furrina



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-15
Updated: 2014-12-15
Packaged: 2018-03-01 14:52:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2777186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Furrina/pseuds/Furrina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alex welcomes Claude to their family.</p><p>(Unofficial companion to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/series/183173">The Penguin and the Flyer series</a>)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Welcome (to our Family)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aer/gifts).



> Thanks for the wonderful gift.
> 
> I'd started writing as soon as Ovie's name came up, but I deleted the fic because I had no intention of writing an RPF. But Ovie and Claude's interaction in [Stunned](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2773745) renewed my resolve. There goes my promise to never never ever write an RPF.

** Welcome **

Sanja is the first person to learn that Zhenya finally found his soulmate. This, of course, confuses him because he’d thought if Zhenya told anyone first, it would be his precious Penguins, who have been waiting a long time for Zhenya and Sidney Crosby to get it on.

To be fair, so is Sanja because Sidney Crosby being Zhenya’s soulmate means that he will officially be Sanja’s for-real brother, and Sanja is totally, completely, on-board with that. In fact, he already has made plans for double-wedding of him and Masha, and Crosby and Zhenya... and it’s going to be _awesome,_  no matter what Sasha and Sergozhya say.

This, of course, changes when Zhenya informs him, half-elated, half-disappointed, that he finally found the guy, and that his soulmate, the owner of the jumbled mess of words on Zhenya’s wrist, is _not_ Sid. And not only is it NOT Sid, it’s a fucking Flyer. And not just any Flyer, it’s Claude fucking Giroux.

Sanja shares his disappointment, obviously, because he was so sure that if anyone could successfully handle the horribly adorable mess of stubborn bully and innocent puppy that was their Zhenya, it would be Sidney Crosby... and he had _plans_   for the four of them.

But no matter, if Giroux is Zhenya’s soulmate, and Zhenya is happy with that, Sanja will just have to deal.

**-x-x-x-x-x-**

'Fucking Caps', Claude swears, icing his shoulder which had taken the brunt of Oleksy’s hit.

It wasn't a bad hit, per se, but he had crashed shoulder first into boards, and getting slammed around by a 6 ft D-man has never done anyone any favours. And that’s not even the worst part. The worst part is that they lost. Again. Losing sucks, but a losing streak so early in the season pretty much kills the morality of the team for the entire season. And to lose against the same team twice inside of two weeks is just...

A knock sounds on his door.

Claude thinks about sending off whoever it is at the door but, with so many rookies and new guys on the team, as a Captain, it’s his responsibility to put his team’s needs ahead of himself. Or maybe it’s just Danny’s propensity to take care of everyone that’s rubbed off on him.

The thing is Claude misses Danny. He misses living with him... misses seeing his smile first thing in the morning... the way his face scrunched when he was mad, but too Canadian to say so. He misses Danny’s comforting hugs at the end of a horrible loss. He also misses the boys. He tried visiting them a few times after the buyout, but he’s never been completely comfortable around Sylvie, and without Danny, it just feels weird. He wishes could run off to Montreal, hide his face in Danny’s shoulder and just _forget_   everything for a while.

Claude hadn’t been Danny’s soulmate – it had been Sylvie – but Claude had loved him like one. He’d always prayed that he would never find them, whoever the owner of his wrist-name was, because then he wouldn’t have to worry about someone replacing Danny in his life.

‘Stop it now,’ he tells himself. ‘You _have_ a soulmate. And he’s good, and kind, and amazing and, most importantly, he loves you _back_.’ He wonders if he should call Geno. ‘May be later,’ he decides as the staccato of knocks turns into desperate hammering.

“Alright! Alright! I’m coming!” he snaps, throwing his half-melted ice-pack on the bed, and crossing the room. He yanks the door open, he intent on giving the asshole a piece of his mind. Only, it isn’t one of the rookies. It’s...

“Ovechkin!” he gapes. “Wha—“

But before Claude can even get the word out of his mouth, Ovechkin yells something that vaguely sounds like “Pyolinko!” ***** and barrels into him.

Claude finds himself being pushed backwards into the room, the giant Russian wrapped around him hell-bent on crushing the breath out of his body. His knees hit the edge of the bed and then he's falling, taking the still-blabbering Russian with him.

Claude is vaguely aware of the fact that his door is still wide open, and he's lying on his bed with _Ovechkin_ on top of him, and somehow that gives him the strength to push the Russian off. He scrambles towards the door, slamming it shut and locking for an added measure. _He REALLY does not want anyone on the team to see the Captain of their rival team in his hotel room,_ especially _so soon after an embarrasing loss._ Then, he turns to Ovechkin.

"What the fuck is _wrong_   with you?" he demands glaring down at the grinning idiot. Ovechkin has the sense of looking ashamed, if only for half-a-second, then the happy grin is back.

The matteress bounces as he sits up, looking like a child who got _exactly_ what he wanted for Christmas. "You Zhenya's soulmate, yes? I come to welcome you to family!"

The breath knocks out of him with the force of Chara slamming into his blind side, and Claude has to sit down, swallowing the barrage of emotions that comes up his throat. He takes a few deep breaths to compose himself, then turns to Ovechkin. “He...” he takes another breath. “He told you?”

Ovechkin shakes his head, and expression transforms into sort of fond amusement that is usually reserved for babies and rookies. “Ever since he find you, Zhenya talk about nothing else. My soulmate this... my soulmate that... He can’t stop talking about you. I don’t think he will stop even if you stitch his mouth.”

Claude closes his eyes to stop tears from flooding his eyes. He does not want to cry in front of Ovechkin of all people, but the fact Geno told his friends about him... He knew Geno loved him, but everyone knows that Russians of NHL are a close bunch, and Geno telling them about Claude is as good as Geno telling his family about him. What was it Ovechkin had said, ‘welcome you to the family’?

With that comes yet another thought... “Did Geno send you?” he asks, and Ovechkin’s deer-caught-in-headlight look is answer enough.

But before Claude can say something, Ovechkin heaves a long-suffering sigh and shakes his head. “I ask him, if your whole family in Russia and poor Giroux...”

“Claude,” Claude interrupts. “You might as well as me Claude.”

“And you call me, Sanja,” Alex grins. “As I was saying, I say, Zhenya, if your whole family in Russia and poor Claude over here, who will welcome him to our family? He tells me to leave you alone,” Ovechkin rolls his eyes. “No sense that boy. How you not welcome soulmate into family? Soulmate should be displayed proudly, not hidden away like a shameful secret. But he says, no Sanja, Claude wants to take it slow. I respect him.”

Claude has to look away at that. He knew that Geno wanted to tell everyone about him, but he hadn’t thought Geno was respecting _his_  wishes to keep them a secret.

Beside him, Ovechkin sighs. “I try to talk to you after the first match, but we have to leave immediately. But then, I find out that you are staying here for night, and I tell myself, Sanja, what better time to talk to poor sad Claude? He needs a hug after that game.”

Claude bites back a curse at the reminder of that shit-hole of a game, and nods, “Thank you.”

Ovechkin smiles back, and pulls him into a one-armed hug. Thankfully, it’s short-lived. “And now that we’re practically brothers,” he says, that gap-toothed grin doing nothing to hide the determination in his eyes. “I have this _awesome_   idea...”

**Author's Note:**

> *Google Translate told me that the informal way to call say "Soulmate" in Russian is "Polovinku", which to my non-Russian ears sounded something like "Pyolinko".
> 
> It was supposed to be longer with the Flyers walking in on Ovie and Claude and OF COURSE getting the wrong idea, which Ovie casually corrects while Claude wishes for the floor to swallow him up. But, I got stuck, then deleted it twice and well... there you go.


End file.
